5 Days In The Upper Peninsula Of Michigan – Here’s What We Did

After finishing up in Minnesota, we moved on to the 36th state of our 50 state road trip – Michigan. To kick things off we booked 5 nights in Houghton which is in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (commonly known as the UP).

We’d booked a stay up there because we’d heard rave reviews from many people about the UP. We weren’t as blown away with it as we thought we would be based on how much other people love it, but there were definitely some beautiful parts.

Our time there wasn’t assisted by the wildfires in Canada that were around in the spring/summer of 2023. The air quality wasn’t as bad as some other cities, but it was still pretty bad. That smoke meant visibility was poor, plus it meant we weren’t too keen on spending a bunch of time outside.

Here’s what we got up to while staying in the Upper Peninsula.

Where We Stayed In The UP

Holiday Inn Express Houghton-Keweenaw

We stayed all five nights at the Holiday Inn Express Houghton-Keweenaw. Accommodation in the UP tends to get expensive in the summer, so the room rate was higher than we usually pay given our $125 daily budget on the road trip. However, at $158 per night including tax, it was our best value option, especially because the Capital One Shopping portal was offering 16% cashback at the time which should mean we’ll be getting back more than $110.

Our initial impression of the hotel wasn’t great. There was no front desk agent when we arrived at about 8:15pm and had to wait 10 minutes for her to come back to the front desk. When she did, she didn’t really acknowledge us and proceeded to be one of the least personable front desk agents we’ve ever had.

Our stay itself though was perfectly fine. They kept breakfast well-stocked, the fitness room had a decent enough amount of equipment with cardio and weights, there was an indoor swimming pool and whirlpool and they also had an outdoor seating area.

What We Did In The UP

Sturgeon Falls Hiking Fail

While Shae was working one day, I took Truffles out to go hiking and see some waterfalls. The day didn’t end up going quite as planned, particularly on the hiking side of things.

We drove an hour down to the Sturgeon Falls Trailhead. I got out the car and went to the trunk to put on my hiking boots, only to get swarmed by mosquitos. Despite having bug spray in the trunk, I knew that wouldn’t be enough to counteract that many mosquitos, plus I didn’t want Truffles to get bitten all over on the hike, so I got back in the car (along with half a dozen mosquitos!) and decided to head on to our next destination.

Bears Den Overlook

While driving there, I spotted a sign for Bears Den Overlook and so decided to stop to check it out. There were a bunch of mosquitos here too, so we hurried along the short trail.

While the view was pretty enough, it wasn’t so special that it was worth hanging out to enjoy the view given all the mosquitos around, so we rushed back to the car.

Agate Falls Scenic Site

After missing out on Sturgeon Falls and there not being much to Bears Den Overlook, I’d hoped that visiting Agate Falls might redeem the situation a little, but that ended up being a bit of a bust too.

On the positive side of things it was free. However, the relatively short trail leads to a “view” of the falls from above, but which is blocked by trees. There might have been some other trail where you can view the waterfall from below, but Truffles and I didn’t bother sticking around to explore further.

Bond Falls Scenic Site

The day almost went from bad to worse. Our final stop was Bond Falls Scenic Site, but when arriving I discovered you needed a Michigan State Parks Pass. I was happy to pay for one, but they only accepted cash and check – no cards. In keeping with how the day had gone so far, I didn’t have any cash on me. You can buy a pass online, but I didn’t have any signal on my phone.

I asked the person at the entrance station if there was an ATM nearby. She said there was one several miles away, but I was feeling despondent at that point and decided to just head back to the hotel. Shortly after leaving there, there was a convenience store and so I stopped there to ask if they sold State Park passes or had an ATM. As expected, the answer was no on both counts.

Things finally took a turn for the better though. I remembered that we’d rejigged some of our stuff and had left a couple of cases in our trunk. One of those cases had a checkbook in it on an account we rarely use (and use the checkbook even more rarely!), but which had more than enough money in it to cover the cost of a Michigan State Park Pass. I was only a minute or two down the road from Bond Falls Scenic Site, so we headed back there and bought an annual pass, figuring we’d likely end up at other state parks during our month in Michigan.

I’m glad Truffles and I headed back as it was definitely worth a visit. The falls were pretty and there was enough of a trail up past the waterfalls to make it feel like we’d gotten a little exercise.

Lake Superior Roadside Park

Perhaps this should go under the ‘Where We Ate & Drank’ section seeing as we stopped here for a picnic lunch on our way from Houghton to Traverse City. However, I’ve put it under ‘What We Did’ as it would’ve been worth a stop even if we hadn’t eaten there.

Michigan has a bunch of these roadside parks around the state which are like rest areas but with more focus on the park element than just being somewhere for people to use a restroom. They tend to be in scenic areas and this one on Lake Superior was the most scenic of all the ones we saw.

As the photo above suggests, there were beautiful views of Lake Superior and we could see a beach area down below.

After lunch we decided to head down to the beach to have a wander along the sand and dip our toes in the water. It was such a wonderful stop and we’d have happily spent a bunch more time there, but we still had a 4.5 hour drive to go that day.

Lakenenland Sculpture Park

Just a few miles up the road from Lake Superior Roadside Park is where we were originally planning to stop for lunch – Lakenenland. This is a free-to-visit sculpture park that’s pet-friendly. There’s a half-mile dirt road through the park that you can choose to either walk or drive along. With us spending quite a while in the car that day, we decided to walk it to stretch our legs a little more.

Lakenenland was created by sculptor Tom Lakenen and features more than 100 sculptures made of recycled iron. We’ll have a separate post in the next few days featuring more photos from there, but for now here’s another one from our visit.

Driving Through Smoke

While in Houghton the air quality had been poor, but it got even worse on our drive to Traverse City. We went from having blue skies and seemingly clean air for some of the drive to all of a sudden driving through smoke that was like thick fog. The photo below doesn’t do justice to quite how bad it got at times – visibility was very low on some parts of the drive. Thankfully we made it to Traverse City in one piece, but there were times we couldn’t see Lake Superior despite it only being 20-30 yards to our left!

Mackinac Bridge

The Mackinac Bridge connects the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the Lower Peninsula. Similar to the UP in general, we’d had many people rave about the Mackinac Bridge, but we didn’t find it as special as lots of other people do.

The main reason for that is because before we set off on the road trip we lived in Portsmouth, VA for several years and Shae grew up there. Near Portsmouth you have the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel which is 4.6 miles long, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel which is 3.5 miles long and, longest of all, the 17.6 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, each of which we’ve driven over many times. I’d also just gotten back from a work trip where we’d driven across the 34 mile long Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge which, according to Wikipedia, is the longest sea crossing and the longest open-sea fixed link in the world. As a result, we could see why so many people find the 5 mile long Mackinac Bridge beautiful and an interesting drive even though we didn’t admire it as much as them.

Where We Ate & Drank

Pasty From Taste Of The Upper Peninsula

Just before crossing the Mackinac Bridge we stopped for gas. We’d had people mention that we needed to get a pasty while in the UP and I was intrigued. I’m from the UK which is home to the Cornish pasty, so I was curious as to how a UP pasty would compare.

As it turns out – very favorably!

We hadn’t gotten around to trying a pasty just before leaving the UP, but after filling up with gas Shae spotted a store across the street – Taste of the Upper Peninsula – which had a board outside stating that it had, among other things, pasties. This was our last chance to get a UP pasty, so we drove across the street to get one.

Oh my word, it was amazing! They had a number of different meat fillings and I picked the beef. It had potatoes and vegetables inside too and I paid a little extra to get a small tub of gravy to dip it in. I can’t describe how great it was – definitely the best pasty I’ve ever had (I guess I should have my British card revoked 😉 ) It was incredibly flavorful and absolutely packed with filling.

I’ve no idea if all UP pasties are that good or if we just got lucky with a particularly good place, but now I’m sad that we didn’t get more of them while we were up there!

1 lb Cinnamon Roll From Hilltop Restaurant

One of Shae’s aunts lives in the UP and let us know that Hilltop Restaurant in L’Anse sells 1 lb cinnamon rolls that were supposedly very good. We love our cinnamon rolls and love our giant food, so stopping there on our way through to Traverse City was a no-brainer.

We ended up sharing it at lunch when we stopped at the Lake Superior Roadside Park and we could see why her aunt had recommended it so highly. It was delicious and is probably in my top 3 cinnamon rolls ever (what, you don’t have a list of your best ever cinnamon rolls?!) It would probably have been even better if we’d been able to heat it up before eating, but it was great despite not having an opportunity to soften it up like that.

The Library

I mentioned above that Shae’s aunt lives in the UP. Well, we got to meet up with her for dinner at The Library in Houghton near where we were staying, so it was nice getting to see her again.

The Library wasn’t all that amazing though. We were there for 10-20 minutes without anyone stopping by our table, so we eventually had to flag down a server to get any service. They didn’t have any of the beers on their regular menu as Ore Dock Brewing Company was doing a tap takeover. I ordered their porter which was OK, but wasn’t anything to write home about.

For dinner Shae got the RB2 which was roast beef with sautéed mushrooms and cheese on French bread and truffle fries as her side. I ordered their James Beard Reuben which had slow-roasted pastrami, sauerkraut and thousand island dressing on pumpernickel rye (it normally has cheese too, but I ordered it without) and homemade chips as my side.

They ended up mixing up our sides, so we had to switch our sandwiches. Similar to the porter, the sandwiches were fine but weren’t memorable.

Things We Missed In The UP

Between only having five days there, the smoke which made being outside not very fun, the mosquitos, having to work and the distance to some of the attractions, there’s a lot we didn’t get to visit while staying in Houghton. Here’s everything else we’d either found for ourselves or people had suggested in case you want ideas for other things to do in the Upper Peninsula:

• Thomas Dambo troll in Germfask – this was built just after we left the UP. We love Thomas Dambo’s trolls – you can see the other ones we’ve visited here.
• Copper Harbor
• Keweenaw National Historical Park
• Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entry Light (a lighthouse)
• Twin Lakes State Park
• Fourteen Mile Point Lighthouse
• Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
• Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness
• Laughing Whitefish Falls State Park
• Wagner Falls Scenic Site
• Palms Book State Park
• Seney National Wildlife Refuge
• Tahquamenon Falls